Jack Lechner is a producer of film and television based in New York City. He is also a professor, writer, and lyricist. Jack was supervising producer on the 2016 reboot of Explorer for National Geographic; supervising producer on The New Yorker Presents for Amazon; consulting producer on Untouchable for the BBC and Hulu; and producer on TruInside for TruTV. His credits as executive producer include the Oscar-nominated Blue Valentine; the Oscar-winning The Fog Of War; the Emmy-nominated Left Of The Dial for HBO; the 2020 web series Group; Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys for Sundance; Parking Lot for Trio; Sunset Daze for WE; the feature documentaries The New Public, Naked On The Inside, Very Young Girls, and Smile 'Til It Hurts: The Up With People Story; and the feature film Bite Me. He was a producer on the pilot for Mad Men, the Emmy-winning AMC drama series; and on Shots In The Dark for Court TV and Channel Four. In 2013, he was a co-producer on Playwright: From Page To Stage for PBS.
From 2000 to 2004, Jack was an in-house producer for RadicalMedia. Prior to that, from 1996 to 1999, he was Executive VP for Production and Development at Miramax Films. During this time, Jack was closely involved with such movies as Good Will Hunting, Little Voice, The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, Guinevere, and Velvet Goldmine. Before Miramax, Jack was a VP of original programming at HBO, where he supervised the BBC co-productions The Affair and Deadly Voyage, and developed the docudrama Hostile Waters. From 1991 to 1994, he was second in command at Film Four in London, supervising the development and/or production of films including The Crying Game, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Full Monty, Shallow Grave, Brassed Off, Safe, Naked, Bhaji on the Beach, and Backbeat.
Jack recently contributed lyrics to the 2022 Off-Broadway dance show Big Shot. Previously, he wrote the lyrics for the off-Broadway musical The Kid, based on the memoir by Dan Savage, which premiered at The New Group in 2010. The show won the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Jerry Bock Award, a Jonathan Larson Grant, a GLAAD Media nomination, a Lucille Lortel Award nomination, and five Drama Desk nominations, including one for Jack’s lyrics. Jack wrote special musical material for the film View From The Top and the HBO special A Family is a Family is a Family; and for six years wrote song parodies for the Independent Spirit Awards, televised on IFC and AMC. From 2010 to 2016, he was a member of the steering committee for the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop. He is currently writing the lyrics for a stage musical adaptation of the 1989 movie Blaze, with music by Paul Libman and book by the film’s writer-director, Ron Shelton.
As a writer, Jack worked on the NBC game show Million Second Quiz and the NPR quiz show Ask Me Another. His articles have appeared in The Village Voice, Good, Variety, The San Francisco Chronicle, Photography & Culture, and Premiere; and he has constructed puzzles for publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, TV Guide, Original Logic Problems, Games, and Games World of Puzzles. His non-fiction book, Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You: One Man, Seven Days, Twelve Televisions, was published by Crown in 2000; his picture book, Mary Had A Little Lamp, was published by Bloomsbury in 2008; and The Ivy League Rock & Roll Quiz Book was published by Delilah Books in 1983.
Jack is the current chair of film at Columbia University School of the Arts. Although he dropped out of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Jack was an adjunct professor there for nine years. He graduated from Yale University in 1984 with a B.A. in Film Studies. Jack is active as a consultant, for clients including The Canadian Film Centre, Harpo Films, HBO, INKubator Enterprises, Left/Right, Lightbox Entertainment, M.Y.R.A. Entertainment, RadicalMedia, and The Rockwell Group. In 1988, he set a record for wagering and losing the most money in the final round on Jeopardy! (the record stood for 33 years, until broken by Matt Amodio), but he made up for it later on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Wheel of Fortune. He is married to Sam Maser; their daughter Maude was born in 2001.